UniSea President Tom Enlow testifies before the Unalaska City Council on Tuesday, Feb. 27. He was joined by representatives of the Trident, Alyeska, and Westward Seafoods processing plants in supporting the council’s demand for restrictions.

Credit Laura Kraegel/KUCB

The Unalaska City Council is standing by its request that Congress place restrictions on a troubled factory trawler commissioned by Fishermen’s Finest.

The company urged councilors earlier this month to rescind a letter they sent to Alaska’s Congressional delegation.

But councilors stood firm on Tuesday, arguing that sideboards must be imposed on the catcher-processor America’s Finest.

Without restrictions, Vice Mayor Dennis Robinson said the vessel could stay offshore and swipe profitable cod deliveries that should go to Unalaska’s shoreside processing plants.

"The shore sector is the lifeblood of this community," said Robinson. "Without them, we wouldn’t be building a library. We wouldn’t be doing the stuff that we’re able to do."

The rest of the council agreed after an hour of testimony dominated by representatives from shoreside fish processors.

UniSea President Tom Enlow said he’s sympathetic to the situation in Anacortes, Washington, where America’s Finest sits unfinished in a shipyard. The vessel can’t get in the water until Congress waives a construction mistake that broke federal law.

But Enlow said Fishermen’s Finest shouldn’t blame the hold-up on Unalaska’s demand for sideboards.

"We don’t have any quarrel with the Dakota Creek shipyard or the fine city of Anacortes," said Enlow. "It’s about the migration of cod that’s been processed historically by shoreside plants in Unalaska, Akutan, and King Cove — moving offshore to factory trawlers that are acting as motherships."

Representatives from the Trident, Alyeska, and Westward Seafoods plants said the amount of cod claimed by catcher-processors has increased sixfold since 2016. That’s meant less revenue for their companies and fewer hours for their workers.

Mike Horn of Sundance Stevedoring made the only argument in favor of Fishermen’s Finest. He said the company's fleet isn’t responsible for the rise of factory trawlers.

"These vessels are not designed as motherships," said Horn. "They make their money fishing."

That didn’t sway councilors. None of them proposed changing or retracting their letter.

"If Fishermen’s Finest isn’t planning on using this vessel as a mothership, then what difference would it make whether it has sideboards or not?" asked Councilor James Fitch.

U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska is negotiating the Congressional waiver and sideboard requests with U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington.

Mayor Frank Kelty said he expects a decision soon on the specific issues raised by America’s Finest. But it’s likely the North Pacific Fishery Management Council will have to grapple with larger concerns about cod allocations and motherships in the future.

The City of Unalaska will pay $36,000 to help sink a boat that’s already on the ocean floor.

The state scuttled the F/V Akutan last month with help from the U.S. Coast Guard, but they moved forward before collecting funds from the city. That’s left councilors debating whether they should chip in at all. The final vote was almost unanimous.

Councilor James Fitch was all for it.

“We are obligated to pay this because the job has already been done,” Fitch said.

The abandoned boat that plagued western Alaska for months is now on the bottom of the ocean. The U.S. Coast Guard assisted the state by performing an emergency scuttle of the F/V Akutan Thursday, three miles outside U.S. waters.

The processor was abandoned in Unalaska in September following a disastrous fishing season in Bristol Bay where the ship’s owner went broke, the crew went unpaid, and it’s 158,318 pound haul of salmon was declared unfit for human consumption.